Sir Charles stays loyal to faithful Bulls Eye putter

Left-hander one of all-time best on greens.

When New Zealand's royal leaders bestowed knighthood on Bob Charles nine years ago, they touched his shoulders with a sword.

If anyone earned a break with that tradition, it was Sir Charles.

They should have knighted him with a putter, his Bulls Eye putter.

Because that's the loyal servant who helped Charles earn his royal status.

Charles, 72, is considered one of the greatest putters who ever lived. His left-handed stroke was so pure when he won the British Open in 1963 that the Royal & Ancient has the Bulls Eye putter he wielded that week preserved at St. Andrews behind glass with its other golf treasures.

"It was my old faithful," Charles said by telephone from his farm in Christchurch, New Zealand. "Putting is a matter of hand-eye coordination and feel. Part of the feel is what you hear, the sound the putter makes. I really liked the feel of that putter, and I liked the sound it made."

Few tour pros have been more loyal to a putter than Charles has been to his Bulls Eyes.

Actually, he has two of them enshrined. The Wentworth Club Gallery in England has the Bulls Eye preserved that he used to win the World Match Play Championship in 1969.

Charles estimates he has used about a dozen similarly crafted Bulls Eyes over the past 45 years. Of course, they're left-handed, crafted to 35 1/2 inches and 15 1/4 ounces with brass heads (some of which he painted black). He also favored a silhouette grip before it was outlawed.

Charles picked up his first Bulls Eye from the man who invented it, John Reuter Jr., in Phoenix sometime just before he won his first PGA Tour event in Houston early in 1963. Charles has faithfully used nearly identical versions of that putter ever since, though he confesses to a few wayward flirtations with other putters, meaningless trysts he insists meant nothing to him.

"I always go back to Old Faithful," Charles said.

This winter, Charles teed it up in the New Zealand Open, the site of his first important victory 53 years ago, when he won as an 18-year-old amateur while equaling the 72-hole tournament record of the time. After struggling this winter in the first round with a new putter "whose design shall remain nameless," Charles put a Bulls Eye back in his bag. With just 25 putts in the second round, he became the oldest player at 71 to make a cut in any of the world's major professional tours.

The Bulls Eye was 18 years old. That's the thing about putters. You won't see players using drivers or any other clubs from other eras, but the best putters stand the test of time. They're still good today.

"You can talk all you want about technology today, spin and over spin, weighting and balance and all of that, but if you hit the ball squarely in the middle of the face with a well-made putter no matter its age, you will make putts," Charles said.

Charles, who has won 70 times around the world, tied for 23rd while shooting less than his age in three of the four rounds.

"Bob was an amazing putter," Hall of Fame teacher Bob Toski said. "He was a great reader of greens and he had great feel. He putted without any wrist action the way players did back then. He putted the way it's taught today, with a hands-arm-shoulder motion and firm wrists."

Charles estimates he used his first Bulls Eye putter for up to 10 years before the R&A asked to add it to its collection. He turned it over, but his yearning for a reunion with the putter came through when he returned to play the British Open at St. Andrews in 1978. He asked if the curators could open the glass case so he could use old faithful once more that week.

"I handed it back at the end of the tournament," he said.

Over the years, Charles took special care of his Bulls Eyes, as he did all of his clubs. He never checked them into a club's storage area. He always carried them back to his room, one of the few players of that era who did so.

"I put a cover on my putter, too, to keep it warm when I play," Charles said. "You don't want a cold putter out there."